This Week I Learned - Week #7 2025
This Week I Learned -
* Phi-4 is a 14B parameter state-of-the-art small language model (SLM) that excels at complex reasoning and conventional language processing. Phi-4 is available in GitHub Models.
* You can now attach images and work with them directly in GitHub Copilot Chat. Share screenshots of errors and Copilot will interpret the image and resolve the issue.
* A group led by Elon Musk offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit controlling OpenAI, aiming to prevent the AI startup from becoming a for-profit company. Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 but left before it became successful. He later started a competing AI company, xAI, in 2023. OpenAI is trying to transition to a for-profit model to secure more funding for AI development. Musk sued Altman and others in August 2023, arguing they prioritized profit over public good. Musk believes OpenAI should return to its original mission of being open-source and focused on safety.
* The gitingest service can turn any Git repository into a simple text digest of its codebase. This is useful for feeding a codebase into any LLM. You can either use the web interface of Gitingest to provide the URL of the Repo you want to probe or replace the domain name "github" with "gitingest" in the URL while you have a GitHub Repo open. The service will get you the details of the repo like the Summary, Directory structure as a single string. You can then copy-paste this prompt-friendly text and interact with your LLMs to probe any Repo. Also works for Huggingface.
* The explosion of new TLDs has complicated email security. The expansion of top-level domains (TLDs) beyond traditional ones like .com, .org, and .net has created new opportunities for email-based fraud. While users were historically trained to trust certain TLDs (.edu, .gov), the introduction of hundreds of new TLDs has made it harder to quickly verify legitimacy. The challenge is compounded by email clients' use of sans-serif fonts, where subtle differences between characters can be nearly impossible to detect. Due to a scamster typosquatting with similar-looking TLD, infrastructure giant Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL) has became the victim of a phishing scam.
MEIL made legitimate payments to Duiker Combustion through ABN Amro Bank, which were acknowledged by the vendor’s representative, Peter Nuijs, via his official email ID. Later, an email allegedly from Nuijs—using the address ‘nuijs@duiker.cam’ instead of ‘nuijs@duiker.com’—claimed that the vendor’s original bank account was restricted due to court orders. The email instructed MEIL to make future payments to a new account at JP Morgan Chase in Alpharetta, Georgia, US. Believing the communication to be genuine, MEIL transferred two payments only to discover later that it has been scammed due to the visual confusion between the traditional ".com" and ".cam" TLD (released in the new wave of generic TLDs)
* Cyber fraudsters are using fake WhatsApp display photos (DP) of company directors to deceive employees into transferring money.
* Trendshift.io lists trending GitHub Repositories and Developers
* American football evolved from “rugby football” in the late 19th century. The transition came in 1906, when teams began passing the ball forward instead of only backward. The NFL was founded in the 1920s and started the Super Bowl championship game in 1967 after a merger with a smaller upstart, the American Football League.
There are 11 players on a side, but the key player is the quarterback. He takes the oblong ball at the start of each play, and he either hands it to a player who tries to run with it, or he throws it downfield for a receiver to catch. Teams have four tries, or “downs,” to advance the ball at least 10 yards (9.1 meters, but don’t get caught saying that when surrounded by football fans).
The other team will try to stop them from doing so, a process that often ends with one or more players grabbing the player with the ball and hurling him to the ground abruptly.
Sometimes a player will do something wrong (a “penalty”), and the referee will signal this by throwing what looks like a yellow hankie (the announcers will say that “a flag is on the field”).
The field is 100 yards long, and a team making it to the end (the “end zone”) gets 6 points (a “touchdown,” very good), and 1 more if it can kick a ball through some big metal posts (the “goal posts”) afterward.
The game cannot end in a tie. If it does, the teams play “overtime” until a winner is determined.
There are several variations of football around the globe. What Americans call soccer is football in much of the rest of the world.
The Super Bowl is the final game of the season of the National Football League, the mammoth league with the $100 billion television contract and teams worth $5 billion or more. This year, the Philadelphia Eagles will face the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans
Should Kansas City win, it would become the first team ever to win three consecutive Super Bowls. - NYT
* Campylobacter Jejuni, a bacteria responsible for causing diarrhoea, may be behind the unusual surge in Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) cases in Maharashtra. It is a rare autoimmune disorder known to affect the peripheral nerves. Nearly 20-30% of the samples tested so far have been confirmed positive for Campylobacter Jejuni. This means that these patients suffered from infection caused by the bacteria before developing GBS. Under the Mahatma Phule Jan Arogya Yojana (MPJAY), GBS treatment in Maharashtra’s govt hospitals is free of cost. In contrast, private hospital treatment bills are steep — a single dose of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) can cost as much as Rs 20,000. - ToI
* 25% of Scottish households own cats.
* The US accounts for only 15% of world trade. With Trump’s inward-looking approach and high tariffs, its share will shrink further, to maybe 12%. - Swaminomics
* The price increase of cocoa was less than $2,000 a ton in the summer of 2022. It is now hovering around the $10,000 mark. It hasn’t been this high for the last 50 years. Global cocoa prices are trending at $10,000 per metric ton. Global cocoa prices which have been on the boil for quite some time due to scarce supply reached nearly $13,000 per metric ton in December last year, hitting a record high. Chocolate prices have surged by nearly 50% compared to Valentine’s Day last year.
* 59% of shoes bought in the US are made in China
* France is the first European country to adopt UPI
* About 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization. Around 20% in India alone.
* India’s gig worker population has shot up by 30 percent over the last five years to hit 10 million.
* As politicians vie for votes by freely offering freebies, the Supreme Court called out the practice in rather strong language, saying it's creating a "class of parasites" who rely on handouts. - Moneycontrol Editor’s Picks Newsletter
* Indians now make up 28.2 percent of all accepted residency applications in New Zealand, up from 17 percent in 2019
* "The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo" - Desmond Morris
* "Silence is golden... until you can think of a good answer." - Muhammad Ali
Comments
Post a Comment